Deluxe Vinyl Replicas by Culture Factory constitute high quality reissued compact-discs which reproduce all the components of the original LPs and are their exact replicas in compact-disc size (5.3 x 5.3 inches), with authentic single or gatefold cardboard jackets and paper sleeves. In addition to the above, each compact-disc Deluxe Vinyl Replica includes a black finish CD complete with the original label to give it the look and feel of the original record album. The music is encoded using state of the art, high definition remastering in 96 kHz / 24 BIT audio.
Part of a series of live recordings unearthed after 40 years, this album presents one night of a three-night stand Quicksilver Messenger Service played as opening act for Jefferson Airplane at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco on February 4, 1967. The recordings are especially valuable since Quicksilver played for years, usually in and around San Francisco, before releasing its first album, Quicksilver Messenger Service, in May 1968. As this performance shows, the band was ready to record more than a year earlier.
Released legally 36 years after the fact, the double-disc set At the Kabuki Theatre presents a recording of Quicksilver Messenger Service's 1970 New Year's Eve performance in San Francisco; the sound quality is surprisingly good, because the show was broadcast live that night by local radio station KMPX, resulting in a relatively clear recording. The concert came at a late point in Quicksilver's history. Exactly one year earlier, on New Year's Eve 1969, the existing band consisting of guitarist John Cipollina, bassist David Freiberg, drummer Greg Elmore, and pianist Nicky Hopkins had been rejoined by guitarist Gary Duncan, who had left the group after its second album, Happy Trails, and singer/songwriter Dino Valente, who had been intended to be a member of Quicksilver at their formation in 1965, but was forced to serve a jail sentence for drugs instead…
Without question, this follow-up to Quicksilver Messenger Service's self-titled debut release is the most accurate in portraying the band on vinyl in the same light as the group's critically and enthusiastically acclaimed live performances. The album is essentially centered around the extended reworkings of Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love?" and "Mona," as well as the lesser lauded - yet no less intense - contribution of Gary Duncan's (guitar/vocals) "Calvary." This album is the last to feature the original quartet incarnation of QMS. The collective efforts of John Cipollina (guitar/vocals), Greg Elmore (percussion), David Freiberg (bass/vocals), and the aforementioned Duncan retain the uncanny ability to perform with a psychedelic looseness of spirit, without becoming boring or in the least bit pretentious…
Friends of Extinction is basically an expanded two-CD reissue of Dinosaurs' sole album, 1988's Dinosaurs, with two outtakes and an entire disc of previously unreleased 1985-1989 live material. It's a little mean-spirited, perhaps, to criticize the recordings of a band that - as the liner notes make clear - approached music-making primarily as fun, with virtually no ambitions to make a steady professional career out of the group. Still, their album was no doubt not wholly what fans of the San Francisco bands that had spawned the players were expecting. The opening synth pop rhythms of "Lay Back Baby" seemed to indicate a band determined to get in tune with the sound of the mid-'80s, rather than one set on re-creating past psychedelic glories…
Have you heard The News? The sweet pop/rock/soul sound of San Francisco's Huey Lewis & The News has sadly gone silent in recent years, thanks to its one-of-a-kind frontman's battle with Ménière's disease, which causes intermittent hearing loss. But a surprise new reissue campaign courtesy of Universal Music Group's Japanese division promises the most comprehensive look at the band's blockbuster catalogue of the '80s and early '90s.
By licensing these previously unreleased live and studio tracks (plus some previously released but rare material) from the Special Markets division of EMI-Capitol Music, the mail-order company Collectors' Choice Music has legitimized Quicksilver Messenger Service recordings that had floated around on bootlegs and quasi-legal discs for many years. The performances all date from 1967-1968, a period during which Quicksilver consisted of lead guitarist John Cipollina, rhythm guitarist and singer Gary Duncan, bassist David Freiberg, and drummer Greg Elmore. As Richie Unterberger points out in his liner notes, "They were not so much singer-songwriters as they were virtuoso players and creative interpreters and stylists. They were not the greatest of vocalists or composers"…
Esoteric Recordings are pleased to announce the release of Man’s classic 1976 album “Welsh Connection”. Recorded in 1976 following Man’s departure from United Artists records, the album saw a new line-up of the band featuring Micky Jones (Guitar / Vocals), Deke Leonard (Guitar, Vocals), Phil Ryan (Keyboards / Vocals), John McKenzie (Bass) and Terry Williams (Drums). Featuring tracks such as ‘The Ride and the View’, ‘Out of Your Head’, ‘Something is Happening’ and ‘Born With a Future’, the record reached the UK Top 40 and was to be Man’s last studio album of the 1970s. This Esoteric Recordings edition has been newly remastered from the original master tapes and features the bonus track “I’m a Love Taker”, along with the entire recording of Man’s concert at The Keystone, Berkeley, California on 9th August 1976…